


Angels. Always so Literal.

by Dogsled



Series: Season 13 Codas [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Can Hear Longing, Coda, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode: s13e07 War of the Worlds, Prisoner Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 19:43:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12871662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSA spoilery coda for 13x07. Castiel can feel Dean's longing, but he still doesn't really understand. He has a conversation, one soldier to another, that helps him connect the dots.





	Angels. Always so Literal.

Close to the bars. This was his prison, his penance, what could have been and what was. He’d been here before, of course, but he’d been inside a different prison then; his own body, incarceration of his own making. Not Hell but close enough. Hell of his own making.

 

This Hell, though, was other people.

 

The cell alongside his own was occupied. Rattling bones, rattling cages, a depowered, pacing archangel rambled on; a gnat in his head that would not shut up for all the many hours that they were alone. No wonder the Empty had thrown him out, he’d clearly been channeling Lucifer. It was ceaseless. Unbearable. Castiel considered dragging his ears back and forth along the rough stone wall until he’d worn them off completely. Knowing his luck, he’d still be able to hear Lucifer even then.

 

“This is your fault, Castiel. Don’t you understand how important this mission is? We have to stop Michael.”

 

He resisted the urge to bite out a reply, having learned better the last time. “ _You should have let me speak to Sam and Dean earlier_ ,” was what he wanted to say now—earlier he’d stuck with “ _How is it my fault?”_ in the vain belief that fewer words opened him up to less scrutiny. He’d wished he hadn’t spoken at all.

 

How had he ended up in this mess?

 

Oh, that was right, he’d left Dean. And for what? He should have known that his fellow angels were irredeemable, that they would attempt to double-cross him when they got him alone. But they had been his family for so long now, millennia, and he still longed for them to change with him. How long had he felt like an outcast, an aberration, less than?—but he was _not_ less than. He would not sleep, would not be caged; this he knew. He would fight and fight; fight Hell and fight Heaven and fight Eternity itself…

 

God, he had felt so invulnerable when he’d woken in that field. He’d forgotten that the world hadn’t chosen to be better alongside him. There was still so much suffering, so much guilt, so much pain…

 

So much longing.

 

Dean…

 

He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, tearing his mind away from the direction in which it was drifting. Feeling Dean’s loss had almost ripped the earth from beneath him the moment his feet had touched it, and he could sense his confusion and loss now as well, tugging fiercely at his centre. There was no distraction here to break him from the sensation, no blinking lights or moving cars, wind, rain or bees; nothing but Lucifer whining on the other side of the bars. If only it were as easy to block _that_ out.

 

Thank all that was unholy for Asmodeus and his whims. Though he felt the slightest pity for Lucifer when he was dragged away by the demon’s cronies, at least it brought him some peace.

 

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

 

“Chin up, Halo.”

 

Or not.

 

Blue eyes were watching him from the end of the hall.  Ketch. He bristled fiercely at the intrusion. This man… He was no friend to him or the Winchesters. Manipulative, with an undercurrent of something cold that ruffled Castiel’s feathers far too easily, just as it had the first time they’d met.

 

“What do you want?”

 

“Is it so hard to imagine I came down here seeking intelligent company?”

 

“Yes,” Castiel replied, without hesitation.

 

“You wound me,” Ketch answered.

 

Castiel was tempted to ask him what he wanted again, but instead he held his tongue. Ketch would explain himself sooner if he wasn’t bickering with him over his pride.

 

“Asmodeus has it wrong,” Ketch finally said, after studying him for a minute. “Lucifer isn’t the key to finding Jack. You are.”

 

It took all the effort in Castiel’s being not to expose his fears in his stance. The natural tension across his shoulders was inevitable otherwise.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“It’s Asmodeus’ belief that you’re a pawn to use if the Winchesters get in our way. But you’re not. You’re a pawn to use if the Winchesters get there first. Which they will, of course…”

 

“You sound certain.”

 

“Please. Who single-handedly drove the Men of Letters out of the States? Averted an Apocalypse or two? I have great faith in your tartan besotted friends.”

 

Castiel flickered his eyes over Ketch’s face. _Intelligent conversation._ Now he understood. Ketch wasn’t wrong; if anyone was going to find Jack, Sam and Dean would. They _cared_ about _him_ , something that neither the angels, Asmodeus or Lucifer seemed capable of.

 

“And?”

 

“And when the Winchesters find Jack, we’ll offer them a trade.”

 

An icy chill settling somewhere between his shoulder blades, Castiel forced himself to turn away.

 

“They won’t trade me for Jack. You’re wrong.”

 

Ketch tutted, then, with a rich laugh he stepped closer. “More fool you if you truly believe that.”

 

The wall was superbly interesting. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“When I was briefed on what we would be facing here, I was told all about angels – what we know of your kind. The Men of Letters have experimented in depth over the centuries, after all, how else would we have developed the weapons we had against you?”

 

 _“Experimented…?”_ Castiel turned back toward Ketch, shaken. “That’s not possible. We would have known if even one of us had been taken.”

 

“Would you? It seems to me that you only ever know what you’re supposed to know. You’re marionettes, nothing more.”

 

“No,” Castiel snapped. “There’s nobody pulling our strings.”

 

“Not any more. No, the civil war in Heaven put paid to that, didn’t it? Fine. You’re machines, then, programmed for each mission with one singular goal--”

 

“The way you programmed Mary,” Castiel interrupted.

 

At mention of Mary’s name, something unknowable crossed Ketch’s expression. Castiel probed, but met resistance both physical and mental, Ketch rapping the bars with the butt of his gun. “Uh uh uh. None of that. You’re not welcome in my head, angel.”

 

Castiel glowered, but sank back a little, his fury ebbing as he looked around his cage again. He needed to get out of here. He needed to get back to Dean.

 

“As I was saying,” Ketch continued. “Your kind are defunct; programmed for war with nothing to fight. Things that don’t evolve are bound to die out. Speaking as a soldier myself, of course…”

 

Bristling particularly at the effort to forge himself as some kind of mirror for him, Castiel turned away again. Perhaps what was annoying him so much was how much Ketch was right? He saw it too: the angels had no purpose. What was the goal in creating new angels if there was nothing to fight, if the gates to Heaven remained closed? Worse, his brothers and sisters seemed incapable of learning: presented with the same questions they always answered in the same way, no matter how foolish that choice had been the first time: with revenge and desperation forefront in their minds.

 

“But there is potential in your species,” Ketch continued, speaking at the back of Castiel’s head. “For emotion, for feeling; a kind of humanity. You see, little secret between you and me? It starts with fear, and _all_ angels are capable of that under the right circumstances.”

 

Castiel shook off the discomfort imbued by the words “the right circumstances”, disgusted for what he was sure his kin had suffered at the hands of the Men of Letters. _Fear?_ No, if that was all it was then the angels would have learned to embrace humanity as he had a long time ago. Fear was not the key to all of this. There was something missing.

 

A pang of longing.

 

Of course. _Dean’s soul, bright as a comet tail spitting iron and ice, just as strong and burning hot and fierce against his hand. It was not only Dean who had burned when they had touched; not only Dean who had been changed._

 

“You’re wrong,” he said, confidently.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

“Is it because all _you’ve_ ever known is fear?”

 

Ketch snarled, curling his lip. He changed tack with sufficient ferocity to knock Castiel back a step. “Dean Winchester loves you.”

 

When Castiel didn’t answer, Ketch moved closer to the bars, his eyes narrowing fiercely. “That’s right. He loves you, and not as a brother, either.”

 

Castiel made a mirthless sound. “And I suppose he told you this?”

 

“He didn’t have to.”

 

Castiel snorted, meeting Ketch’s gaze defiantly. “Then I have absolutely no issue informing you of your mistake.”

 

“Is that right?” Ketch drawled, obviously unshaken by the accusation. “How can you be so certain?”

 

“Why should I tell you?”

 

Ketch shrugged, as though he had no answer. Castiel could have left it at that, he supposed, but in truth he longed to voice his doubt. Yes, perhaps he was addressing it with the wrong person, but Ketch had raised the topic, and he seemed to have some small insight.

 

And Castiel _needed_ this. The confusion he felt was unbearable. Dean longed for him with increasing intensity, even now, and not in the same way that he felt about his brother. But that was what he called him: _buddy, brother, pal._ Each epithet was more painful than the last.

 

“When humans love each other, they tell them.”

 

It was a mistake to speak at all. Ketch eyed him like he was a particularly delicious looking peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The Brit’s nostrils flared, as though the truth had a scent, chin raising incrementally.

 

“He hasn’t told you…” Ketch’s eyes narrowed to slits. “--So _you think he doesn’t_.”

 

Castiel felt ashamed. There was mockery in Ketch’s tone, and it went right down to his bones. Was this just another thing that he didn’t understand? Was he so useless, such a failure, that even Ketch could see the truth of Dean that Castiel – who otherwise knew him so well – couldn’t?

 

“He would have told me,” Castiel repeatedly, trying to wrestle certainty back into his voice.

 

“Are you so very certain he hasn’t?” A pause as Ketch let that sink in. “You’re a fool, Castiel. Dean is a soldier. All he’s ever known in his life is pain. The people who love him always leave him, and his worth is counted in the lives he’s saved. Does that sound like someone who is likely to leave himself vulnerable so very easily?”

 

Castiel knew those things. Of course he did. But it was another thing to have Ketch speak them out loud, boring down into him, into the soul he didn’t have, with such sharp efficiency that it almost felt as though he were using a blade rather than words.

 

“He’s probably said it to you, right to your face, and you didn’t even notice.” Ketch chuckled. “Angels. Always so literal...”

 

Grimacing, Castiel kept his eyes on the wall. He couldn’t stand to look into Ketch’s face, didn’t wish to witness his cruel, broad grin spreading with certainty that his guess regarding the Winchesters was right. Let him believe what he wished. Castiel could only hope that they wouldn’t think to trade Jack for him. Jack deserved better.

 

Ketch’s laughter went with him, but Castiel was left imprisoned with longing; Dean’s longing, as always, and his own—and this time the questions in his head could not be silenced: If Dean wanted him so badly, if Dean loved him so very badly, then why didn’t he say so?

 

Or was it that all those prayers over the years - all the longing he’d felt, the relief, the embraces, the gifts - were those a declaration that he had simply been incapable of understanding?


End file.
